Understanding God’s Message or Will

This question arose from the context of a discussion on a Christian website (The Gospel Coalition, (http://bit.ly/25BQ00I) about transgenderism and God’s acceptance of people regardless of their false beliefs about themselves and God. One person actually commented earlier in the discussion,

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Christ accepts us in our current state (which includes any categories mentioned in regards to gender and gender change) because of grace and love. We as ministers of reconciliation are to treat all equally, offering Christs love to believers and non believers alike. Their current state is not as relevant as you might think when it comes to knowing Christ.”

The following is a reply to the question, “By what process do I discern God’s message?”

The Scriptures make clear how we discern the message (God’s will) of the Scriptures. Both Jesus and the Apostle John inform us that a person must be born again (John 3:1-8; 1 John 2:29; 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18). Without new birth that comes from God, no one can practice righteousness, repent, truly love one another and God, place faith in Christ, or overcome the evil world. If God has not given new birth to a person, one cannot even rightly discern God’s will or the “the things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:14). In fact, the person not born of God does not even accept God’s will. Read the cited passage.

Afterwards, a person needs to devote oneself to the reading and study of God’s word. That is a discovery process, a discovery of the mind of God through the agency of the authors. That is, we must always seek the author’s intent within the contexts in which he speaks. Scripture hoping and proof texting are not valid approaches to the Bible. Those ways are not the ways we read a regular book. We do not isolate a sentence or paragraph from a book’s context and then claim, “To me, in means…”

Devotion to the Scriptures does not simply mean reading and studying the Scriptures, but also applying and obeying them. When we hold to the Bible as nothing more than a “conversation,” we devalue it for our lives and fail to understand how it applies to us. We cannot really know God’s will, though we can understand His message, unless we live faithfully in obedience to him. Obedience by faith gives way to true knowledge (Romans 1:5; 6:16; 16:26). One cannot really know the things and will of God without obedience by faith. One thing neglected in this discussion around “transgenderism” is it ignores God’s will and word, because it rejects it. It also overlooks faithful obedience to God’s will for our identity in favor of one looking inward for a fictitious identity. It does not seek to discover the identity God gave us but rather seeks to establish one’s own. The entire message of 1 Corinthians 2:14 elude those who follow this path. All the arguments in the world for attempting to justify one’s self-identity and lifestyle are arguments that reject God. In essence, they are atheistic. Arguments are not application or living by faith. Arguments over the Bible, lifestyles, and philosophical speculations amount to resistance to God.

What follows the engagement of Scripture is then living by faith. As I mentioned before, faith subscribes repentance. If there is no repentance, there is no faith. They are inseparable. The faith that sets one’s sights on God involves repentance that turns to Him. Arguing over God’s word does not lead to a life of faith but rather to a life of speculative darkness.

The gospel is clear. Christ died and rose again on our behalf to bring about faith in Him and remission of sins. Believing the gospel (good news) leads one from the bad news, the result of rejecting it – eternal death. Read carefully through 1 John, and you will learn how to know God and His will: a) the new birth, b) living by faith (repentance), c) practicing righteousness, and d) loving God and others.